A Buddhist Perspective on Organ Donation

Our
organs are the most intimate parts of our bodies. We almost never
notice them functioning but without them we could not survive.
Giving them away after death is seen as an incredible act of
life-saving generosity, even more so while one is alive.

In South Asia, there are signs that
misconceptions about organ donation are receding, but India remains
a country with one of the lowest organ benefactor rates. Buddhist
monks and other religious leaders have played an important role in
encouraging this act of post-mortem generosity and
compassion.

On 31 December last year, The Times of India,
reported that two teenage boys had been saved by doctors at the
Institute of Kidney Diseases and Research Centre in Ahmedabad
thanks to two kidney transplants. The Times of India says that
these organs were transferred based on a decision of the family of
a 47-year-old brain-dead man called Apurva Desai, who had collapsed
on 29 December and was declared brain-dead the next day. Desai’s
cousin Nirav, brother-in-law Mihir, and uncle Bharat were quoted by
The Times of India as saying that organ donation was a “noble
deed,” and that there couldn’t be anything as noble as “giving a
new lease of life to people.”

Religious concerns about the afterlife and
getting a proper funeral discourage family members from donating a
loved one’s organ. One apprehension is that the deceased do not
find peace after death without their body “intact,” and their
spirits will haunt the living. One unsavory reason is that there is
a demand for illegal organs in the market, which only leads to more
botched surgeries, uninformed donors, and unneccessary
deaths.

To challenge and dispel these myths, the
National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organization (NOTTO) hosted
Organ Donation Day on 30 November last year and invited Buddhist,
Christian, Islamic and Hindu religious leaders to come discuss the
issues plaguing India’s organ donation rates. Speaking at the
event, Shri Ravi Dev Gupta, a Hindu leader, said that organ
donation is often misunderstood because people fail to understand
what it entails. He said that a human being may willingly
contribute to “normal donations or donations related to
contributing wealth” but hesitate when it comes to donating an
organ. He went on to add that examples of organ donation could be
found in many Hindu scriptures. (NDTV)

Lama Lobzang, leader of the International
Buddhist Confederation, said: “People think if we donate an eye,
we’ll be born without an eye in the next birth.” After dismissing
this misunderstanding he called upon people to live with a
comprehensive awareness of an eventual donation. “If you donate
with a pure mind, there is no better work.” (NDTV)

Lama Lobzang’s opinion echoed other that of
other Buddhist masters. For example, Karma Lekshe Tsomo offered
several reasons in support of organ donation: “to donate a vital
organ gives another person the chance to have a longer life and to
use it meaningfully for Dharma practice. After death, one’s vital
organs are no longer useful, so they may as well be used to benefit
others.” (Tsomo, 156)

Tsomo further lists three reasons: “first, to
donate one’s body for research or organ transplantation is a way to
sever attachment to one’s own body. Second, to place another
person’s welfare above one’s own is a perfect expression of the
bodhisattva ethic of compassion. Third, to donate one’s organs with
the pure motivation to benefit others will bring great fruits of
merit in future lives, enabling one to gain a fortunate rebirth and
further opportunities for Dharma practice; if the gift is dedicated
to the enlightenment of all beings, the fruits are immeasurable.”
(Tsomo, 156)

Robert A. F. Thurman, chair of religious studies
and Jey Tsong Khapa professor of Buddhist Studies at Columbia
University, said that the organ donation offers a “karmic
advantage” to Buddhists. In an interview, he said: “ordinary people
have a continuity of life that is their consciousness continuum.
They don’t like to talk about a self and they’re a little nervous
talking about a soul because it can be taken for a self. [Their
consciousness] leaves the body behind completely. The body is not
sacred in that sense. . . . So there is really no bar to organ
donation. In fact it is considered, especially in Mahayana
Buddhism, nothing but an extremely virtuous thing.” (New York Organ
Donor Network)

Sri Lanka has set an enviable example as a
generous donor of corneas. In 2014 the Eye Donation Society, a
non-profit organization founded by doctor Hudson Silva in 1961,
estimated that one in five Sri Lankans had pledged to donate their
corneas. However, the survey did not include those like Viswani
Pasadi, a Buddhist student who has signed up with the National Eye
Bank (a different institution) to pledge her eyes after her death.
In 2014, the latter exported 2,551 corneas, including 1,000 to
China, 850 to Pakistan, 250 to Thailand, and 50 to
Japan.

The BBC reported Sri Lankan Buddhist monks as
having helped to encourage donations and teaching people to see
them as an act of giving that can help them to enjoy a good
rebirth. One of these monks, Kiribathgoda Gnanananda Thero, has
already donated a kidney and is encouraging others to do the same.
He held up the Buddha as an example in the Buddhist scriptures. The
Jataka Tales portray the Buddha’s past lives as the heroic and
compassionate bodhisattva, whose many lives were voluntarily ended
due to an act of superhuman physical sacrifice, including lives
where he cut off his own flesh or gave up his limbs so that other
beings could benefit.

Kiribathgoda Gnanananda Thero illustrated this
with the Jataka tale of how the bodhisattva selflessly gave his
eyes to a blind beggar, restoring the latter’s vision. “Generation
after generation, we are listening to those kinds of stories,” he
told the BBC. “So we are very encouraged to give our body parts to
others.”

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